LV= has made substantial changes to its Life and Critical Illness insurance to provide greater coverage for families.
Including brain injury due to trauma, anoxia or hypoxia, Crohn’s disease, severe mental health and severe sepsis - increased from 44 to 49.
For cancer, the most claimed for condition, LV= has introduced a new £1,000 payment for policyholders, or any child covered by the policy, if they are diagnosed with one of the listed cancer conditions and evidence of diagnosis is provided. The payment would be made before a claim is fully reviewed by an assessor, would not reduce the amount of cover and is designed to help with additional costs of being diagnosed with cancer.
Cover is now available up to a 50-year term up to age 80 (for level and decreasing cover) and improvements include simplifying the amount paid for enhanced payments to pay twice the amount of cover up to an additional £200,000, increasing the age of diagnosis to 55 for neurological enhanced payment conditions, and introducing three organ-related enhanced payments – major organ transplant, liver failure and severe lung disease.
Earlier in January 2020 LV= announced it is working with Maggie’s, a charity offering emotional and practical support for people living with cancer and their family and friends.
Debbie Kennedy, Director of Protection at LV=, said: “We consulted widely when developing our new critical illness policy and many of the enhancements followed suggestions from financial advisers. As a result, I believe we now offer unrivalled comprehensive all-round support for advisers’ clients and their families.
“Critical illnesses such as cancer, heart attack or a stroke can have a devastating financial and emotional impact. One in two people are likely to get cancer during their life and, following diagnosis, encounter a wide range of challenges as well as financial problems.“Our cancer diagnosis payment can ease the financial worries and through our expert partners, including second opinion and our working relationship with Maggie’s, we can offer the reassuring practical and caring support for the family. “We’ve taken a long hard look at our critical illness policy to make sure it can really protect modern families – including more conditions, children’s cover to age 23, access to emotional health support for young adults and our junior option – which allows adult children to easily secure valuable protection for themselves.”
LV= is a leading financial mutual. and serves over 1.3 million members with a range of financial products. When we started in 1843 our goal was to give financial security to more than just a privileged few and for many decades we were most commonly associated with providing a method of saving to people of modest means. Today we follow a similar purpose, helping people to protect and provide for the things they love, although on a much larger scale and through a wide range of financial services including insurance, investment and retirement products.
LV= and Liverpool Victoria are trademarks of Liverpool Victoria Financial Services Limited (LVFS) and trading styles of the LV= Group of Companies. LVFS, registered in England with registration number 12383237, is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority, Registered number 110035. Registered address: County Gates, Bournemouth BH1 2NF.